The stock plugins for example the equalizer seemed very confusing, ended up turning to 3rd party equalizers just because the stock one was just too confusing.

Registration required.

You have to buy "Studio One Professional" if you need the Support for third-party sampler format (EXS, Giga, Kontakt).

There is no built-in score sheet for MIDI tracks, not even a basic one: you must do everything with the Piano Roll. The program may interface with Notation to do that, but you have to buy it separately and it is still clumsy.

The interface Graphical is comic bookish. While the DAW is useful there are better interfaces out there. One of the biggest issues is how the signal path is selected. Other DAW's work more like a patchbay allowing for a more visual interaction with the program. Studio One is different and a little obtuse. For example, Digital performer 11, Protools 11, Sonar Producer provide a better experience.

The DAW can be used as a ReWire host, but cannot be used as a ReWire component. This is frustrating if you like some of the instrument sounds and virtual synths in Studio One, but prefer another DAW to do your main work in.

The full version of this DAW may justify its price by including VST and VSTi plugins, but the 'affordable' version does not support VST plugins out of the box. So you can't purchase the affordable version of this DAW and simply add VST plugins, either freeware or purchased ones.

SO3 cannot control your synth. You cannot see/control or access patches, their names, or SysEx. It seems that everything is centered around use of virtual instruments, and not hardware synth.